# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 03 30_S124
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

124

their faith is not idle and dead. Heb. 13, 1. Paul exhorts: "Let brotherly love continue!" and Phil. 1, 27. "Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind." -- Do congregations, then, do wrong when in free obedience to the Word of God they unite with one another as brethren? May one suspect and revile that? --

You wish also for the future to have preachers and teachers for yourselves and your children. Whence do you think to get them? Will you wait until perhaps one comes running along at a happy hour? And when one comes, who among you will examine him, whether he be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers, whether he be no secret Rationalist, or Methodist, or Unionist, etc.? Or is it perhaps still all one to you what a preacher preaches, if only he delivers you a discourse, baptizes your children, marries, etc., but otherwise lets everything go as it will? Is it perhaps your own will and wish that the preacher concern himself about nothing further, punish neither false doctrine nor false life in earnest, so that only no so-called "discord" may arise, that the manifestly malicious be not admonished, not excluded from the congregation, and so perhaps of those who pay the preacher's salary there be ever fewer, and thereby your expenses ever higher? If it is still thus with you, if Christianity is to you an article of trade, with which you strive to purchase as cheaply as possible your worldly respectability and sham piety: then indeed you are still far from able to grasp the usefulness of a synod, much less to become members of it. But if, by God's grace, you already have a holy earnestness about the establishment and maintenance of the ministry, then you will not give a call without further ado to every preacher whom you find, but only to such a one as is also truly fit to be a steward of the mysteries of God. But whence, I ask once more, will you take him? Again from Germany? O yes! that would be very convenient, very cheap! The people in Germany may by all means send their sons to schools, seminaries, universities, may spend their last farthing to have preachers and teachers trained from them, in order that the free, well-to-do congregations in America may be best provided for without further trouble and expense. We ought to be ashamed before poor Germany; Germany ought to be supported by us, but instead we are always expecting help from her for ourselves, for our children and children's children. Is not that a sad, sinful impudence! -- Lay your own hand to it, to train up preachers and teachers for yourselves and your children, build colleges, buy collections of books, pay professors! But how -- can you do that alone? By no means! Well then, unite with other congregations; what one cannot do, several can. Or do you perhaps think again that congregations have already united, built seminaries and colleges, and that from these you would, if need ever arose, be able also to obtain help? Will you then always be only beggars and remain so, always only take, never also give, work together, help together? -- Now is a synod, a union of congregations that provide for the training of preachers and teachers for the service of the Church, something wrong? Is it not sin and shame that such a thing should be suspected and slandered by wicked men! --

You wish to be Christians, so the command of the Lord Christ concerns you also: (Mark 16.) "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature!" You cannot go yourselves because of your business affairs, so you must send others who go for you. But such messengers, missionaries, must first be trained, then sent out, then also be maintained among the heathen. Can you do that alone? Have you the means for it? No! What will you now do, nothing at all? Leave the heathen to their misery without feeling or pity? That you may not do either! So unite with other congregations; fellowship is able to do what the individual cannot. Is a synod, then, a union of congregations that jointly provide for the training and sending of missionaries, something wrong? --

It is the will of God (1 Cor. 12, 4-31.) that the manifold gifts should show themselves to the common profit. That is, if a congregation has good knowledge in the Scripture, or experience in conflict, or discerning of spirits, or wisdom in doctrine, or strength in faith, or courage in confession, then it may and should not bury such a gift with itself, but let also other congregations have the benefit of it, for God has given the gifts for the common profit of all, and whoever in self-will withstands God therein, robs Him of His gift, and has God's punishment to expect. -- What is to become of the Church of Christ if sloth, pride and covetousness tear all the members asunder, if the eye says to the hand: I have no need of thee -- or the head to the feet: I have no need of you? -- Is a synod, then, a union of congregations that will lend one another a helping hand also in spiritual goods, that wish to help that the gifts bring profit to all, something wrong? Does it not testify to great ignorance in divine things to wish to revile such a synod? --

That sects of every kind surround you and wish to crowd you out of your Lutheran confession, you know, and that they succeed in seducing many a Lutheran, you know also. Do you think, then, that you alone with your preacher would be strong enough to withstand the common foe? Why, then, does God exhort to diligence in unity, why, then, did the congregations at the time of the Apostles (Acts 15.) unite for the common defense against false doctrine? Are you stronger, more firmly grounded than the apostolic congregations? Do you think you stand? -- Take heed lest ye fall! Do the congregations, then, do wrong which have recognized in humility that alone they cannot withstand the mighty foe and therefore join with orthodox congregations in the battle? Only to the despisers of the Word, the enemies of the Church, to whom the word of Pilate, "What is truth?" counts as the highest wisdom, and who therefore take offense at all decidedness and firmness of confession, is such a synod irksome and hateful.

The congregations which belong to a synod assemble once a year; such an assembly is called a synodical assembly or synodical session. All the members of all the synodical congregations, however, cannot come together, even if that would be most to be desired, for business at home and the great cost of travel prevent it. The congregations therefore send only deputies, each two, one from the teaching estate, one from the learning estate. For this you surely understand already, I hope, that a Christian congregation consists of just these two estates. The teaching estate alone, that is preacher, teacher, overseer of the poor, etc., by itself, without other members of the congregation, forms no Christian congregation; and the learning estate alone, that is a heap of Christian people by themselves to the exclusion of their preachers, likewise forms no Christian congregation, but is and ever remains only a heap of Christian people. Therefore it is also, by the way, a shameful encroachment of the learning estate upon the divine rights of the teaching estate, when, for example, in a congregational meeting preacher and teacher themselves are not to vote, indeed are not even to be present, since the preacher, by his office, according to God's will, is overseer of the congregation. Only a preacher who carries on his office for the sake of his belly, and lets himself put up with this wretched abuse of the political liberty here, this contempt of the divine office for the sake of base gain, can tolerate that; a faithful shepherd teaches, entreats, admonishes, and if that is of no avail, he shakes such an ungodly congregation off his feet like dust and departs. -- To a synodical session, then, there assemble as deputies of each congregation a preacher and a member of the congregation. Yes, you perhaps say, now it surely becomes manifest that a synod aims at the domination of the congregations and at the lordship of the preachers, for even if at a synodical session as many lay deputies as preachers are present, the deputies of the congregation members can nevertheless accomplish nothing against the preachers, simply because they lack too much the dexterity of speech, and are then easily led by them into dangerous resolutions injurious to the congregations. --